I agree with the article's premise that most historic cannibalism was ritual. You ate your enemy to gain their skills or as some sort of method of showing respect. Pragmatically, it is also hard to kill and eat a human when other protein sources are more abundant.

Also, cannibalism simply became a popular media genre, that never really existed. sort of like quicksand and the elephant's graveyard.

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Actually, Matthew, I am not quite sure if you are serious about the media thing.

Lots of people cling to the political correctness of the idea that indigenous peoples were not cannibals, but they are incorrect. There is heaps of proper scientific evidence to show that cannibalism was widespread among technologically primitive societies. I am not personally convinced that it was purely ritual. If a tribal warrior kills an enemy, then why should you believe that his subsequent action in converting the enemy to roast long pig is done purely as some kind of ritual? I am more inclined to believe that the cannibal feast would be (from their view point) a gourmet pleasure.

Lance Kennedy wrote:Actually, Matthew, I am not quite sure if you are serious about the media thing.

I was saying that cannibalism in media as a popular genre contributes to the false belief that cannibalism is about eating.

I am very aware that cannibalism exists, as you would, from Papua New Guinea. In fact it was a cause of some really unique diseases, similar to mad cow disease, such as Kuru.

Lance Kennedy wrote: I am not personally convinced that it was purely ritual. If a tribal warrior kills an enemy, then why should you believe that his subsequent action in converting the enemy to roast long pig is done purely as some kind of ritual? I am more inclined to believe that the cannibal feast would be (from their view point) a gourmet pleasure.

Interviewing Papuan head hunters.

Actually, I'm lying. It was the professor of Anthropology at Sydney Uni who interviewed the headhunters back in the 1970s. When he wanted to recruit one of us undergraduates for special training he would invite us to watch his 16mm films of head hunters playing cricket. I wish I could find those films on the internet, as there were over 100 warriors on each team and the entire team would run from wicket to wicket and then celebrate. It was amazing.

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Interesting that human brains are so in demand by cannibals.( After all, it was incompletely cooked human brains that carried kuru.) Human brains are the fattiest part of the human body. Hence the term, 'fathead!' But if human flesh is generally low in calories, that would make the brains even more in demand. Perhaps that is where Hollywood gets its zombie ideas from.

A cannibal goes to the local butcher-shop to buy some fresh brains. The brains of scientists are $50 a kilo. The brains of mathematicians are $45 a kilo. The brains of psychiatrists are only 10 cents a kilo. The cannibal asks the butcher :"Why are the psychiatrist brains so cheap?" The butcher replies : "Well, that's because they are almost impossible to clean"